This is it. The end of the world as we know it. Well, you know, the world of summertime, anyway.
As of this Friday, at 5:05 a.m., it will officially become autumn in the northern hemisphere. Stupid northern hemisphere. Why does it have to take away my sweet, sweet summer every year?
Hmpf. Oh well, it's not like we didn't know it was coming.
Yet, I dread the darkness every year when fall arrives. I refer, of course, to the fact that fall marks that time of the year when day and night get equal billing - as in, they both get to make an appearance 12 hours of the day.
According to the Farmer's Almanac, the reason daylight gets the shaft and summer comes to an abrupt halt (OK, I added that part) with the onset of the autumnal equinox is that when "the sun crosses the celestial equator going southward; it rises exactly due east and sets exactly due west."
Stupid celestial equator. Whatever.
The real question isn't "Why does summer have to end? Why, oh, why for the love of all that is holy - WHY?"
No, the real question friends, is, why do we humans insist on ruining the present with trepidation about the future?
For, in truth, it isn't so much fall that is the bane of my existence but the season that follows it. Yet I'm squandering away every second of fall in anxious anticipation of winter.
You know exactly what I'm talking about because you do it, too. Oh yes, you do. Don't make me come to your house and continue this discussion in person.
Take, for instance, that phenomenon I like to refer to as "Sunday Stomach." I'm pretty sure that's the technical term.
Instead of enjoying a beautiful, fabulous Sunday filled with church, family, food, friends, etc. - why do we always waste part (or most) of it worrying about the stresses of Monday?
Sadly, I actually begin to get rumblings on Sunday Stomach late on Saturday night. It is a problem; I am aware.
Unfortunately, my neurosis has landed itself in some fine company. "Oh, I'm so guilty of this," said my friend Nancy Hastings of Liberty.
"My family gets so upset with me whenever we're on vacation, because by the third day in, I start lamenting the fact that the trip is almost over," she confessed.
She's not alone.
"Yeah, I'm pretty famous for being the one on the Fourth of July who fills the celebration with the gloom and doom announcement that summer is, for all intents and purposes, over at that point," admitted my big sister Gina.
True story. She does it every year before the first firework is even lit. Again, the offender list doesn't stop there.
Linda Ellison of Howland came clean, too.
"I can't lie. Every year on the day after Thanksgiving, I start whining about the holidays being over already for another year," she said, lowering her eyes.
OK, that one's ridiculously premature, even by Patty standards.
People, people, why are we all so edgy?
That's it. I'm going to turn over a new orange leaf, starting today. From now on, it's going to be "glass half full" when it comes to enjoying the moment.
"Mom, seriously, there's like, the whole day ahead of us. We can do whatever we want. Just chill!" said my wiser-than-his-years son Kyle recently when I started my ritual of breast-beating over another weekend nearly gone.
Whatcha waitin' for? Go, do! There's like, a whole lot of daylight left in this Sunday.
Kimerer is a Tribune Chronicle columnist. Contact her at pkimerer@zoominternet.net.